


The Apocrypha of Rose Quartz

by DimMemories



Category: Steven Universe (Cartoon)
Genre: A Zircon with too much time on her hands, F/F, No Smut, Post-The Trial, Rebellion speculation, Rose Quartz conspiracy theory, don't let that teaser fool you
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-04
Updated: 2017-06-04
Packaged: 2018-11-09 00:40:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,749
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11093307
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DimMemories/pseuds/DimMemories
Summary: The rebel leader bowed her head in a sign that would be a scandalous display of subservience if another of the Crystal Gems ever witnessed it. “You are most gracious to allow me in your presence once again, My Diamond.”“You have done well, my servant. But I need you to do something more.” The quartz’s smile took on a damaged kind of radiance.(Following the events of "The Trial", Blue Zircon questions everything that she knows about the shattering of Pink Diamond. Multiple headaches ensue.)





	The Apocrypha of Rose Quartz

_A figure shrouded in pink darted across the countryside of the unfinished Earth colony, the organic bramble clinging to her cape. Like a thief, she paused frequently, fearful that she was being followed._

_At the appointed place in the wildlands, she finally stopped to rest. When she was sure that she was truly alone, the traitorous rebel leader Rose Quartz threw off her disguise and knelt, steadying herself on her fearsome sword, which she planted into the soil._

_“My Diamond,” she said, seemingly to no one in particular. “I have arrived.”_

_It was only then that the shadows stirred. They resolved themselves into what was unmistakably the majestic silhouette of Pink Diamond. “Greetings, Rose Quartz.”_

_The rebel leader bowed her head in a sign that would be a scandalous display of subservience if another of the Crystal Gems ever witnessed it. “You are most gracious to allow me in your presence once again, My Diamond.”_

_“You have done well, my servant. But I need you to do something more.” The quartz’s smile took on a damaged kind of radiance._

 

* * *

 

**"AaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAUGHH!!!!!"**

A tortured wail from outside of Blue Zircon’s holding cell drew Blue Diamond’s temporarily disgraced legal defender away from her narrative. She snapped to her feet in a panic. “What is it? Did something get to you, Yellow?”

From her position lying on the floor of an adjacent cell, Yellow Zircon gestured at the ceiling with sharp chopping motions. “Yes, something got to me! The sound of your insane story got to me! Could you please keep your delusions to yourself? Some of us are busy over here trying to regret the day we emerged!”

Blue Zircon leaned as close to the cell opening as she dared to get. “Yellow, we’re already practically shattered where we stand. I just need for all of this to make sense.”

For a moment, the only sound was Yellow Zircon banging her head against the cell wall. “Could you at least keep it down a little bit? You’ve been going through these wild rumors from the war since we reformed here, and now you’ve gone so deep into the Kindergarten that even _I_ don’t recognize this one!”

Blue Zircon wrung her hands. “Actually, this is one of mine.”

“You’re joking.” Yellow grabbed her head, wondering how easy it would be to just pull it off of her neck and bounce it against the wall. “ _Please_ tell me you’re joking! In the case of a mistrial, as I'm sure you're aware, the only hope you have for not being destroyed is proving that you’re still fit for service! It’s the slimmest of possible chances, and this is _not_ how you accomplish that!”

Blue was deeply insulted. “We were created to bring justice to the subjects of the Empire. If a gem can’t fulfill the purpose for which she was created, why is she allowed to exist at all?”

Yellow scowled. “Fine, keep going. But I don’t like this at all.”

“Okay! Now where was I? Oh yes...”

 

* * *

 

_“You have done well, my servant. But I need you to do something more.” And yeah, yeah, the sickly smile part._

_Rose Quartz, the rebel who struck terror in the hearts of Diamond loyalists across the Gempire, brought herself to her feet. “But are you not pleased, My Diamond? Every day our rebellion consolidates our gains, and even after all this time nobody suspects where the true power lies. They think that I, a tragically goofy and overly-sentimental quartz, am the one who pushes back against the radiance of the Diamonds in service of the humans! And the monkeys! And the horses and the bees and the grasshoppers! And the squirrels and the Connies and the My-dads and the...”_

 

* * *

 

“WHAT THE SHARDS DO YOU THINK YOU’RE DOING?”

“I...just wanted to see how many Earth species I could remember without my notes. There were a lot of them. Did you ever see the file on the sloth? The pictures are almost comical!”

“Well, cut it short. You're losing your audience.”

“Fine. Your loss.”

 

* * *

 

_“...Anyway, to preserve all the crawling creatures of the Earth and the disgusting things that they eat sometimes. Not even my inner circle suspects that you, Pink Diamond, are the true power behind the Crystal Gems, and not me, a misfit, off-color Rose Quartz.”_

_The supreme ruler of the Earth colony seemed pleased. “Yeah, I’m a Diamond, so I’m kinda brilliant like that...”_

 

* * *

 

“What?” The force of what Blue had been trying to say finally landed hard enough to make Yellow a little paranoid. “The _true_  power?”

“Don’t interrupt. I’m on a roll.”

 

* * *

 

_During her thousand year reign over the Earth, Pink Diamond had fallen hopelessly in love with the planet. She had come to the conclusion that there was beauty in this handful of dirt, beauty that rose even beyond its material worth to the Great Diamond Authority. Blue Diamond had encouraged her to start the Human Zoo, to protect the younger Diamond against the inevitable heartbreak when the final plans for the colony were irrevocably locked into place. But it wasn’t enough. Every blooming tree, she decided, had a right to exist just for its own sake. A Kindergarten, however, was just a hole in the ground._

_The fatal flaw on the face of the Earth, she had concluded, was_ us _, the Gem interlopers. We were the disease, and she intended to remove us. But a Diamond fighting her own followers? It wasn’t unheard of, but highly suspect, with devastating career consequences. So a front was required._

_To that end, Pink Diamond hand-picked a Rose Quartz who loved the planet almost as much as she did from the guard detail of her zoo. The Diamond secretly trained her, both in advanced combat and the finer art of how to win Gems and influence Jaspers. Her Rose Quartz was an adept pupil, and within the first few hundred years, the Crystal Gem insurrection had escalated from random acts of political theater to hard-fought skirmishes with many casualties._

_But in recent decades, the rebellion had stagnated. The rebels had maintained their hold on their territories, often for centuries, but holding the line was all they managed to do. There needed to be a bold, dramatic pivot point to break the stalemate._

_After sorting several options in her beautiful mind, Pink Diamond settled on the most drastic. But she didn’t know if her soft-hearted quartz had it in her._

 

* * *

 

“No. Just _no_. I know where you’re going with this, and _don’t you dare_.” The Yellow Zircon’s warning fell on deaf ears.

 

* * *

 

_“I need you to shatter me, my precious Rose. The success of the Rebellion demands it.”_

_The rebel quartz felt the tears rising in her eyes. For a long time, even the simplest words wouldn't come. “Is there no other way?”_

_Pink Diamond tenderly stroked her rebel leader’s hair. “Listen to me, my Rose. This is a crisis period in our rebellion. You have acted your part well, but reports are reaching us of defectors who have lost faith in you, who say the wheel of liberation is turning too slowly. We need to light a fire inside of them again, and the only way is for you to prove that even a Diamond can be broken.”_

_Rose Quartz trembled, already grieving over the act she had just been asked to do. “My Diamond, they view me as their leader, but you know better than any other being in the universe that I’m just a foot soldier of your grand plan. I don’t know if I can bear the burden alone.”_

_The Diamond smiled sadly at her protege. “Nonsense. You have done well in my absence, and have rewarded every act of faith I have invested in you.” She held out a hand, and Rose Quartz stepped onto it as the Diamond lifted her to eye level. “But understand this. If this plan succeeds, you will be the most hated of them all. You will never see Homeworld again as a free Gem. And I won’t be there to protect you.”_

_The rebel quartz finally managed to face her Diamond, a fierce determination in her eyes. “I will do this for you, My Diamond. But only with the most extreme distress.” To seal the pact, she kissed her Diamond’s index finger. “So when are we going to make this happen?”_

_“At sunrise tomorrow. You will approach my palanquin under a sign of truce, and when I step forward, you will thrust a shattering blow with your fearsome sword.”_

_Rose Quartz was deeply shaken by this statement. “With all due respect, My Diamond, my fearsome sword doesn’t actually shatter gems, let alone Diamonds. My weapon was only designed to dissipate an enemy’s form. How is this even going to be possible?”_

_And that’s when Pink Diamond, who had maintained a suitably regal posture throughout this audience, burst into raucous laughter. “What? No, Rosie honey, we’re going to fake this!”_

_Rose Quartz toppled over in shock, catching herself on her Diamond’s thumb. “Excuse me, my massive hair gets in the way of listening comprehension sometimes. Did you say we're_ faking _this?”_

_“Yeah, baby, we’re fakin’ it like crazy! I’m going to have a pre-busted gemstone hidden on me and everything! All you have to do is poof me and palm my real diamond into those big ol’ curls of yours.”_

_Rose incredulously leapt off of the hand of her Diamond. “What? Oh, you rotten thing! Why did you let me go on like that? That was embarrassing!”_

_The Diamond shrugged. “I dunno, I thought it was kind of cute. And it showed that you really loved me.” She coyly twisted a finger in her cheek._

_Rose Quartz was visibly relieved. A real shattering would’ve ruined her weekend. But there was still a lingering doubt. “Seriously, My Diamond, forget about me for a moment. If we pull this off,_ you _can never show_ your _gem anywhere in the galaxy again! What happens to you?”_

_The supreme ruler of the Earth thought about it for a moment. “Hmmm, maybe I’ll turn into a lion for a few thousand years. Won’t that be fun? Huh? Being fugitive fun buddies with a big, cuddly lion?”_

_The fearsome rebel warrior and breaker of countless loyalist battalions helplessly giggled, because next to humans, lions were totally her thing at the moment. “Stop it! You are so bad!” Then she stared wistfully at the dark horizon. “Daybreak is so far away, and I’m jacked up with all this betraying-my-own-kind energy.” She batted her eyes flirtatiously. “So what do we do with the rest of the night?”_

_In an instant, the diamond reconfigured her physical form to a more convenient quartz size and wrapped her arms around the rebel’s waist. “Oh, I know! Let’s smooch and cuddle for a few hours.”_

_The rebel casually tossed her implement of war aside. “Hot dog! I thought you’d never ask.”_

 

* * *

 

Blue Zircon’s narrative had degenerated into sloppy smoochy noises for nearly two minutes when the voice from the the neighboring cell snapped her back to attention. “Counselor for the defense? If you’re done kissing the back of your hand, I have a few points I’d like to submit for consideration.”

Blue, who had gotten into the romance angle a little more than she had intended, struggled to collect her professionalism. “Yes, proceed.”

“First of all, what is ‘hot dog’?”

“It’s an Earth colloquialism. In the future, I would advise you to read the appropriate dossier. Subject: Don’t Put That In Your Mouth.”

“Secondly, your case is overladen with superfluous detail that wouldn’t pass muster in a proper court case. Your usual style, of course.”

“I’m still workshopping this piece, okay?”

“But most importantly, _are you seriously cracked_? Because that’s the only excuse I can make for what I was just forced to listen to!”

Blue Zircon smoothed her cravat and squared her shoulders, a habit that gave her confidence under normal circumstances. “So you have issues with that account?”

Even through the cell wall, Blue could hear her colleague’s agitated pacing. “Oh, clods, where do I even begin? Oh, right, the outrageous idea that the murderer Rose Quartz was only following her Diamond’s orders! Is that seriously the theory you’re going with? Because it sounds like you are proposing that Pink Diamond--the revered and deeply mourned lost Gem Matriarch--was the _true_ traitor to Homeworld, perpetrating a selfish fraud that resulted in the shattering of uncountable soldiers on both sides of the conflict. And you’re basing this on... _what_?”

Blue felt the corner of her mouth twitch. “Yes, the evidence is strictly circumstantial, but very strong, considering we're talking about a cold case.”

Yellow waved a hand dismissively. “Oh, of course _you_ think it's a strong case. But is that a facet that you’re willing to be broken for? Because that’s exactly what would happen if you put this before the Diamonds!” And then Yellow added, looking nervously at door that led to the outside, “As if it wasn’t going to happen already.”

Beads of sweat were beginning to form on Blue’s forehead as her current situation slapped her in the face yet again. “Okay, your concern is duly noted. Please continue.”

“There are also a few minor technicalities.” The sarcasm she invested in the phrase was acid. “For instance, whether you can call following a direct order from your Diamond ‘treason’. Also, to fake the shattering, you’d have to assume that not a single gem on the planet would be able to tell the remains of a capital-D Diamond from a handful of regular Earth rocks.”

“That’s...a fair point, actually.”

“And the secret rebel leader angle is especially ridiculous because if Pink Diamond snapped on the natural gemetic order, she wouldn’t have attacked the members of her own court! They were loyal to a fault! She would’ve mobilized them and turned the sword on the other Diamonds! I mean, please, if we’re to believe anything else in your story, _they_ were the ones who had a big Earth-shaped blind spot! Not the members of the Pink court!”

The deflated sigh was painful to hear. “Go on.”

Yellow faltered hearing Blue’s confidence evaporate, but pushed on, more out of professional habit than any sense of urgency. “But most importantly, we have sent too many surveillance craft to the Earth over the millennia. Do you seriously expect a tribunal to believe that none of them would be programmed with a gem signature for Pink Diamond, even as a legacy feature? Concealment would’ve been futile.” The prosecutor’s tone softened considerably. “I’m sorry, Blue. It just didn’t happen that way."

She then bowed her head in sorrow, fighting back a lump in her throat. "It's just like all the other conspiracies you've been wrestling with. Just another dumb thing that we tell ourselves to bear the unbearable.”

Slumping to the floor, Blue Zircon dropped her head to her knees and took a deep breath. “Oh stars, I did it again, didn’t I?”

Yellow planted her hand on the wall, as if she could reach her colleague if she concentrated hard enough. “Look, at least this time you didn’t do it in front of our Diamomds. And you gave me a lot to think about.”

Blue raised her head, turning a weak smile to the wall. “Seriously?”

“Yeah, right now I’m thinking about how much I’d have to bribe that Ruby to just shatter me right now.” They shared a grim chuckle.

Sweet silence descended over the cell block. It lasted for all of thirty seconds. Blue had been so caught up in the moment, and Yellow in trying to avoid it, that they didn’t notice the changing of the guards. The indifferent Ruby had been replaced by a surly Amethyst, who banged on the wall of a vacant cell to make her presence known. 

“Excuse me, but you two are the saddest pile of rocks I ever saw! Diamond turning against Diamond? Pink Diamond a secret rebel? _Smooching?_ Do I need to check you for micro fissures?”

She pointed an accusatory finger at Blue Zircon. “And _you_. I think you just made the whole thing up because you wanted to imagine a big, treasonous make-out session.” She disgustedly plopped down in the corridor in clear view of both prisoners.

And then, Yellow recoiled as the fresh guard spoke what were, in the moment, the most horrifying words in any spoken language.

“Anyway, here’s how _I_ think it happened...”

**Author's Note:**

> Regarding that lion crack: It should go without saying that neither Zircon has seen Lars' Head yet. ;)


End file.
